
Author . 



Title 



Imprint. 



le — 47872-3 m^O 



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SPEECH 



OF 



Hon. ROBERT G. COUSINS, 



OF lOV/A, 



ON 



THE DISASTER TO THE BATTLE SHIP MAINE 
IN HABANA HARBOR. 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



MA.RCH 21, 1898. 



WA^SHINOTOX. 

1S9S. 






g::021 



SPEECH 



^^ 



c/ HON. PvOBEIlT G. COUSINS. 



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The House having under consideration tho bill (H. R. 8G1S) for the reli'>€ of 
j^' the sufferers by the doitruction'of the U. S. S. J/a;ie in the harbor of llabaua. 



Cuba 

Mr. COUSINS said: 

Mr. Speaker: Whether this measure shall prevail, either in the 
form in which it has come from the committee or in the form as 
proposed in the amendment, it is both appropriate and just; but 
hardly is it mentionable in contemplation of the gi'eat calamity to 
which it appertains. It will be an incidental legislative footnote 
to a page of history that shall be open to the eyes of this Republic 
and of the world for all time to come. No human speech can add 
anything to the silent gratitude, the speechless reverence, already 
given by a great and grateful nation to its dead defenders and to 
their living kin. No act of Congress providing for their needs can 
make a restitution for their sacrifice. Human nature does, in 
human ways, its best, and still feels deep in debt. 

Expressions of condolence have come from every country and 
from every clime, and every nerve of steel and ocean cable has 
carried on electric breath the sweetest, tenderest words of sym- 
pathy for that gallant crew who manned the Maine. Bat no 
human recompense can reach them. Humanity and time remain 
their everlasting debtors. 

It was a brave and strong and splendid crew. They were a part 
of the blood and bone and sinew of our land. Two of them were 
from my native State of Iowa. Some were only recently at the 
United States Naval Academy, where they had so often heard the 
morning and the evening salutation to the flag— that flag which 
had been interwoven with the dearest memories of their lives, 
Ihit had colored all their friendships with the lasting blue of 



true fidelity. But whether thej' came from naval school or civil 
life, from one State or another, they called each other comrade — 
that gem of human language which sometimes means but a little 
less than love and a little more than friendship, that gentle salu- 
tation of the human heart which lives in all the languages of 
man, that winds and turns and runs through all the joys and 
sorrows of the human race, through deed and thought anddreaip, 
through song and toil and battlefield. 

No foe had ever challenged them. The world can never know 
how brave they were. They never knew defeat; they never shall. 
While at their posts of duty sleep Im-ed them into the abyss; then 
death unlocked their slumbering eyes but for an instant to behold 
its di'eadful carnival, most of them just when life was full of hope 
and all its tides were at their highest, grandest flow; just when 
the early sunbeams were falling on the steeps of fame and flood- 
ing all life's landscape far out into the dreamy, distant horizon ; 
just at that age when all the nymphs were making diadems and 
garlands, waving laurel wreaths before the eyes of young and eager 
nature — just then, when death seemed most unnatural. 

Hovering above the dark waters of that mj^sterious harbor of 
Habana, the black- winged vulture watches for the dead, while 
over it and over all there is the eagle's piercing eye sternly watch- 
ing for the truth. [Applause.] 

Whether the appropriation carried by this resolution shall be 

ultimately charged to fate or to some foe shall soon appear. 

Meanwhile a patient and a patriotic peoi^le. enlightened by the 

lessons of our history, remembering the woes of war, both to the 

vanqiiished and victorious, are ready for the truth and ready for 

their duty. 

The tumult and the shouting dies— 

The captains and the kings depart- 
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, 
An humble and a contrite heart. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. 
Lest we forget— lest we forget. 

[Loud and long-continued apiilause.] 
3141 

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